CinemaBlend
Copy to clipboard
Itâs 2021, and Hollywood is taking more strides every day in embracing diversity. A greater number of filmmakers from different backgrounds are getting to tell stories, and in some cases, this puts weight on the creator to represent all of the community they are a part of. Hisonni Johnson, director of
Take Out Girl, pushed back on this and shared why he never feels pressure to represent the Black community.
When it comes to being a minority, many of us are constantly aware of how weâre being presented to and perceived by others. When Iâm the only Black person in an office, for example, I wonder if Iâm the only Black person some others in the office converse with on a regular basis, and I want to make sure their perception of Black people, in general, is not negative because of me. I sat down with Hisonni Johnson for an interview with CinemaBlend in support of his new film
Take Out Girl would get made until fate intervened and chance opportunity to meet with director
Hisonni Johnson would help make her passion project become a reality. The film follows a young Asian woman Tera (Wong), who delivers Chinese food for her family. As times get tougher, she turns to a local drug lord and uses her job as a front for his enterprise. I spoke to the writer and star of the film about how she crafted the story, working with Johnson, and seeing the world through her eyes tells an authentic Asian American story. I was just kind of reflecting on how I got to that, Wong said. I was going through a lot of unhappy times, and I was away from my family. When you start reflecting on your life, you have to kind of go back to the beginning of the upbringing. It was like therapy for me and just putting all my thoughts down. I may not have the answers to my problems then, but it was a way to just start figuring things out. I started putting it down on paper. Following her
CinemaBlend
Copy to clipboard
Take Out Girl poses the question: how far would you go to help your family? The latest film from Hisonni Johnson follows a female Asian twenty-something who resorts to desperate measures in an attempt to provide a better life for her family. The film has received some criticism based on a misconception, and the writers are setting the record straight.
In
Take Out Girl, Tera (Hedy Wong) and her brother help their mother run a Chinese restaurant. They barely make enough to keep the doors open and then their mom suffers an injury which causes Tera to look for other options. She takes a job with the local drug kingpin moving his product in takeout food boxes. This has caused some to think the filmmakers are promoting or glamorizing the drug game, but here is what co-writer and Hedy Wong told CinemaBlend:
Take Out Girl Star On Why The Film Is Important For the Asian American Community cinemablend.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cinemablend.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
May 17, 2021
Take Out Girl focuses on the life choices of Tera Wong, a student turned drug hustler that is attempting to provide for her struggling family. Releasing May 18 on digital storefronts, the thriller stars writer Hedy Wong in the lead role. It follows her profitable rise and subsequent fall from grace as she searches for the American dream in one of the few ways presented to her.
Hedy Wong Isn’t Your Model Minority
“I think Asians in the United States were always seen as outsiders,” Wong says of the stigmas that face Asian Americans. “I think the model minority myth was really not to help us so much but used against other minorities, you know? Before that, we were in the 80s with the Black Panther movement. We were the Yellow Peril. [We’re] the model minority, we’re the virus or Yellow Peril… They [are all] dehumanizing because it’s all stereotypes.”